READER OF THE MONTH: Josh’s space odyssey

My name is Josh Richards. I’m a 29 year old Australian physicist & comedian, and an astronaut candidate to the Mars One project – aiming to be one of the first humans on Mars in 2025. I wanted to express my gratitude the huge role Zen Pencils has played so far in my journey toward living and working in space. Two years ago this month I was at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, performing my second solo festival show & my 4th year at the fringe. But I wasn’t happy. I loved making people laugh, and the reviews said I was good at it … but I never got the rush of performing other comics talked about.

Comedy was the latest in a line of marginally successful careers – studying physics and psychology at university, serving with the Aussie Army & the British Commandos, explosives engineering in the mining industry, and as a science advisor to the UK art industry – I packed it all in. But I never felt truly fulfilled by any of it. Just after the 2012 Edinburgh festival I decided to try blending science and stand-up with a comedy show about the ethics & science of sending people one-way to Mars. I’d been researching the show about five minutes before I found Mars One – an organisation planning to do exactly what I was joking about. So rather than joking about it, I applied to be one of the people to go when their astronaut applications opened in in April 2013. There’s just 705 of us worldwide still in the running now, and 24-40 will be picked in June next year to undergo 10 years of training before launching on the one-way mission in September 2024.

But I’m not sure I would have signed up to something so final (or committed as fully as I have) if a friend hadn’t introduced me to Zen Pencils, sending me Chris Hadfield’s “An Astronaut’s Advice”. Hadfield may have had a clear view of what he wanted to do when he was seven, but it took me till I was 27 to work out what I really wanted.

That’s the role your work has played over the last two years for me though. I had enough close calls in the military to instinctively know nature loves courage, but it took seeing your Terence McKenna quote to kick myself into gear when I had misgivings about performing at National Science Week here in Australia instead of playing it safe with comedy in Edinburgh. I knew I had to make the leap of faith to come home and talk about space & colonising other planets.

I had to leave the girl I was madly in love with in the UK because I can do more as a science ambassador here in Australia, and it took seeing your “If you love someone, set them free” comic to remind myself how much I still love her. Without Zen Pencils, I don’t know how many more years I would have continued lost in the woods, never sure I was doing the right thing. Now I have the opportunity to be part of something truly monumental, that will forever change the way we see ourselves as a species.

I keep the Hadfield comic, Neil Armstrong’s “Giant Among Men” and Theodore Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena” all framed on my office wall as reminders to push through criticism in the service of something far bigger than myself.

Even if I’m not selected as one of Mars One crew, that’s okay too because for the last year I’ve been visiting schools all over Australia to talk to kids about space & training to be an astronaut. Seeing a classroom of eyes light up when I tell them they’re growing up in the next golden age of space exploration is a far more thrilling than making hundreds laugh at some naval-gazing joke ever was. I know if someone like Andy Thomas had visited my class when I was 11 it would have changed my whole life, so right now science communication is where I belong … I just needed to try all those other things out first.

So thank you for the crucial role you’ve played. I’m meeting Chris Hadfield in Canberra this month – I’ll be getting him to sign my poster when I do 🙂

Wow, what a story. Thanks Josh, good luck in becoming one of the first humans to colonise Mars! Josh is performing his one-man show Becoming Martian in Perth this month as part of National Science Week. Chris Hadfield is touring Australia and I’m looking forward to seeing him perform in Melbourne. – Gav

Discussion (24) ¬

Wow, talk about packing it all in!! I want to be inspired but for now I’m just sitting and stewing over the fact that this guy is my age and he seems to have done so much while I have done nothing at all with my life, several years unemployed after school then four years at a dead end job, no family, no significant other, no savings 🙁

I tell you what Dee, it only feels like I packed it in now I look back. At the time it was dismal – feeling like you’re failing at everything you do, wondering why you can’t be happy like everyone else. There’s stretches in there were I was unemployed too, just floating without direction.

It wasn’t until really recently that I realised that I needed all those years of stress, questioning and depression to recognise something truly important when it finally came along. Age is irrelevant – it’s about trying to find where you can do the most good in the world right now, failing, looking where you went wrong, and then trying again.

I’ve got no girlfriend, no significant savings, and I’m only an applicant at this stage… but I know right now what I’m doing is helping make the world a better place. Find a way to help someone each day – even if it’s just a smile from a stranger.

Keep trying – the trials today are the lessons to prepare you for tomorrow 😀

First up, thanks for the reply Josh! I’ll be printing this page out and sticking it on my wall, along with the Zen Pencils comics you mentioned in your story 🙂

[Also, thanks to Gavin for this gem of a website! I’ve reached a point where I’m tired of the way my life is and I’m looking to ‘level up’ so to speak. I’ve been searching out inspiration wherever I can find it and Zen Pencils has become a regular stop 🙂 ]

I’m looking forward to a time when I can look back on the big picture and see my life choices making sense but right now it’s all a bit hazy, a lot of ‘floating without direction’ as you said. I feel like I’ve wasted so much time but after my initial stewing 😉 your story has inspired me to ‘do’ more. Stop making excuses, try something, fail, learn and try again, and if I can help someone else in the process, so much the better 😀

Thanks for the encouraging words and all the best in your Mars One adventure! 😀

Oh man I really know what you are saying. The same is happening to me. Luckily, all that suffering actually brings the joy of better understanding. Living in this world with so many confused, angry and selfish people is something very diffcult. That is why I want everybody to read The Present at truthcontest,com. It is a free book I once found on the Internet, and I can tell you with no doubt that is probably the most important single document ever created. So I really invite you to go and check it. If enough people do, we can turn this world into a better place.

We have 4 children aged 19 through to 4 years old. Josh’s enthusiasm has rubbed off on each of them in different ways. 19y has moved counties leaving everything behind everything important to someone his age to pursue more from his life. 14y has started to voice his appreciation of schooling and where he intends to steer himself over next few years. 10y who is reserved and awkward entered his first inter-school athletics and with commitment to training like we’ve never seen before and has achieved astounding results. 4y was outside last night wondering at the Supermoon and has declared she is going to drive a rocket ship just like Josh, but we’re not to worry because she will Skype us just like she does Nana. The people referenced by Josh as his inspiration have a far-reaching effect. As for Josh himself, a down-to-earth guy (only for next ten years hopefully) that is testament that ANYONE can achieve if your commitment is strong. We’ve got 4 children that see it through Josh, believe it within themselves, and are chasing it. Looking forward to his soon to be released book.

I just can’t find the words to say about this story, nothing matches the feeling I felt when I read this. BUT WOW and OMG come to mind. In the last two months after meeting Gav at WDS my life has changed and like Josh, I feel I found my calling after 47 years. I started working with a life coach and after talking to her 3 times, we figured that I have always loved helping people and teaching them what I know, seeing how I made a change in their life is a reward that money can’t buy. Josh’s story helps me know that I am on the right path, that I need to take all my talents and use them to help other people. Not only with my current talents but by becoming a life coach myself. I am not sure where life will take me, but I am going to enjoy the journey because that is where the true reward is. Thank you Gav for sharing this story and for being who you are, an inspiration to so many. It was an honor to meet you at WDS.

Wow. I may be three years younger than Josh but even I feel pretty inadequate at this stage considering I graduated half a year back and am job hunting still while working part-time. Looks like I have a lot to catch up on. Thanks for the inpirational story. Wishing you all the best, Josh. Hope you get selected. I don’t suppose it would be too early to ask for your autograph? 😛

I am heartened every time I hear about someone continuing to have some of their childhood dreams being part of their adult life.

I was separated from the love of my life way back in the early 70s by my year abroad program in Japan and her Master In International Management studies. This was before VOIP made phone calls possible, no email, and no video chats were around then. We nurtured each other and wrote letters. Airmail took at least 4 days, mostly a week. She was great and wrote most days. I wrote a few times a week. After a year of studying she came to Japan for vacation. We courted, I proposed until I did it right, and we have been married since 1976.

That long story was to suggest that the love of your life is ever so much closer than mine was. Now that you are an international star she will have every opportunity to join you in exotic places of your own.

Reading about your commitment to the Mars trip reminds me of ever so many great science fiction stories I have read. You will be worthy of being the inspiration for many a story and not all of them will be fiction. Thanks for making me aware of you and the others trying to make this happen.

I speculate that by the time you are ready to leave that we will have a drive available to make the trip and the return trip available. I hope so. We need some of our heroes where we can listen to them live and get an autograph after a handshake or a hug.

Wow wow! … Wow wow WOW! … Wow! What a story you have there already Josh! What an increible thing to realise and commit to 10 YEARS before it actually happens!

To give up not only the love of your life, but life as you know it is already a heroic choice, that’s right Josh, you are already a hero, and I have no doubt that Gav will be ‘comicing’ about you very soon I’m sure!

All the success to you in whatever happens, but I do look forward to hearing what happens, so keep this a regular, maybe yearly slot! 🙂